Based on a
complaint
filed by Spectrum Institute in 2014, the United States Department of Justice
informed us in May 2015
it had opened a statewide investigation looking into voting rights
violations by the
State of California against people with disabilities who
are in conservatorships.

The following month, we
held a press
conference in Los Angeles announcing a voting rights restoration project
to help 32,000 or more conservatees get their voting rights back.

Here we are more than one
year later. With the passage of SB 589 which
went into effect on January 1, 2016, the problem has been solved going
forward. With a shortage of staff and
backlog of cases, there is
little promise of voting rights being restored in a timely manner to these
tens of thousands of seniors and people with disabilities who had them taken
away by state court judges in violation of federal voting rights laws.
The disenfranchised have until October 24 to get a court order restoring
their rights, have the registrar of voters take them off the disqualified
list, and then re-register to vote. That's a tall order -- but it can
be done.

We have sent out a
media
advisory about our press conference on Tuesday, Aug. 23 at 10:00 am at the
federal building in San Diego. We are announcing the filing of a
new
complaint with the DOJ. We want people affected by voting rights
violations to know they can get their rights restored. We want the
people with power to move the reistatement process along more quickly. We want
the public to understand the laws affecting voting rights and how justice is
on the side of these victims of disenfranchisement.

The negative
psychological effects of voter
disqualification are real. That is why
David Rector is walking with his supporters to the superior court on Tuesday, to enter
the courtroom and insist that the order banning him from voting be
rescinded immediately. He wants others to know they don't need a
lawyer to demand that their voting rights be restored.

More than
35 million
people with disabilities will be eligible to vote in the presidential
election this November. David wants to be one of them. He wants
his case to be visible and for the publicity to alert others that they can
be self-advocates and demand the voting bans against them also be lifted. All they have to do is write a note to the court,
including their name and case number, containing four magic words -- "I want
to vote." That puts the burden on the court to restore their voting rights.

Last year we
notified the DOJ that California might
delay reinstating the voting rights of the disenfranchised. Our
concerns have proven to be warranted. With prodding from the DOJ, perhaps these disability voting bans will be lifted
quickly. This problem is not limited to California, so what happens
here could have rippling effects in many other
states.